Know You're Not Alone HIATUS
by SeverEstHolmes
Summary: Life twists and turns when you loose someone you love. This is how life progressed after the war through the eyes of George, Ron and Percy. Not Slash! Rated M. [ON HIATUS!]
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and will never make any money out of this WHATSOEVER!  
>AN: After the War the Weasley family are reeling from Fred's death, from the point of view of George, Ron and Percy – following the twists and turns of their life as they learn to live without. _NOT SLASH! _Rated M for some explicit language and dark themes. Will contain references to self-harm and suicide, so could be triggering. Keep yourself safe and I hope you enjoy :)  
>This Chapter is in George's POV.<p>

* * *

><p><em>Zzzt- zzzzt!<em>

A fly was caught in between the two panes of glass in the window next to me, my eyes followed it's unsuccessful progress; it was slightly out of focus as I was positioned only a couple of inches away from it. I was trying to figure out how the fly had managed to get in there – I thought that the two sheets of glass were fixed together. I wondered whether that fly had been trapped in there since those windows had been fitted… it must have been there an awful long time. I had never spotted it before, trapped within the panes. But there was a logistically sound reason for why I had never noticed it before; I was never usually near this window – this wasn't my side.

I stared past the fly still battering itself in between the glass and out into the sky. The grey rainclouds were hanging heavily, as though they were full of lead. The rain was coming – it had been threatening for the past couple of hours; it was no surprise, it had been raining for days – weeks… The clouds had gathered even more since I took up my position sitting on this bed, gazing at the world outside. Those leaden grey rainclouds that would melt into pitch-black, soul despairing nights like they had been doing recently; somehow they were both cold, disconnected. At least the weather understood how I was feeling…

_Bang, bang, bang, bang, BANG!_

"George!" I felt my whole body twitch as my brain awoke extremely suddenly; for a second I felt as though I was falling through the air into space, and my arms and legs contracted and gripped onto the edge of the bed I was laying on. I pushed myself up, the sky outside the window was getting dark; the last few rays of light were still persisting, but darkness would soon win the fight for the sky. Hours must have passed; I must have fallen asleep without realising. Asleep on his bed, without him being here; and it wasn't him banging on the door now…

"George, open the bloody door!" There was another barrage of pounding upon the door, of which I took no notice. I knew that it was Ron trying to knock my door down, but I didn't want to see or speak to him, or anyone else. "I'm not going away until I've spoken to you properly." Ron called through the door as though he had read my mind; but that was what Bill had said, and mum too – and both of them gave up in the end.

I smoothed out the covers of the duvet which had sustained several creases from me lying on top of it – if only I could straighten it all out, take it all back to the time when he had been here. Ron knocked on the door continuously as I ran my hands over the covers; suddenly feeling like cold liquid had filled me up, turning my fingers, arms and legs into immoveable ice cubes.

"George… come on, let me in. At least let me come in for a cup of tea, then I'll leave you alone if you want." I tried to ignore him, my head filling with an imperceptible buzzing as I tried to block out the sound of Ron's knocking.

Ron, however, had a lot more staying power than Bill or my mum had, it appeared… Nearly three quarters of an hour later he was still calling through the door and knocking in a kind of rhythmic beat. I stood at the door to the small flat – it hadn't ever been much, but right above the shop it had been extremely handy for the both of us… and it had been _ours. _I rested silently against the front door where Ron was still knocking, wishing he would just go away… or considering whether it would be worth it to let him in, give him a cup of tea like he was requesting, and then telling him to piss off and leave me be… My hand was rested loosely on the door handle, still considering what to do.

"Georgie…" My heart convulsed inside me at the sound of that word and I wrenched the door open so fast that Ron, who had been sat with his back against the door, fell backwards so he was staring up at me.

"Don't call me that!" I had wanted the words to come out angry, I wanted them to be a snarl, to match the anger that was suddenly pounding through me; but my voice had not been used in so long that it cracked with emotion – it just sounded weak and thin. Ron scrambled ungainly to his feet as I turned away and paced down the room, towards the window with the fly. Ron didn't speak gain, I heard no sound at all as I stood glaring out at the evening sky. When I turned around I felt a jolt of surprise, Ron had remained standing on the threshold of the door; he hadn't just waltzed in uninvited. He was waiting to be invited in, looking at me with a mixture of pity, disgust and some kind of determination on his face – I knew fine well that I looked a right state. I hadn't changed these clothes in two or three days, I couldn't remember the last time I had a shower… I couldn't remember the last time any of the normal ideas about washing and changing clothes had crossed my mind… Those sorts of things didn't matter anymore.

"Well?" I shot at Ron, who was still standing as though paralysed at the door of my flat. "You're the one who's been hammering at my door for the past hour! Aren't you even going to come in after bothering me for that long?" I tutted and spun back round to stare out of the window; the lock of the door clicked and there was a long silence. Why had Ron come to see me? I had told mum that I didn't want to see anyone for a while. Maybe I should have been more specific about how long "a while" was – forever!

"I'll make you a cup of tea then." I said finally, without turning to look at Ron. I moved to the small kitchen, which was just on the right out of the large room that we used as the bedroom, and began to make tea. I fished out two clean looking cups, and proceeded to boil the kettle. The milk in the fridge was off, it had curdled into yellow-ish blobs within the carton – Ron would have to forgo having milk in his tea. Maybe the lack of milk would make him leave quicker… I could but hope. I carried the cups back to where Ron was still standing, looking awkward, I handed one to him;

"My milk's off, so you'll have to go without." I explained coarsely, holding my cup and leaning against the door frame; I avoided Ron's gaze for the next couple of minutes. I stared into the oddly grey liquid within my cup – maybe the tea was off too – maybe it was my effect on everything around me, I was making the world turn bitter. I waited for Ron to speak, trying to brush aside the knowledge of the sour world I was inhabiting.

"You look like hell." Ron stated plainly, I grunted in a kind of half-aware way; I was hoping that Ron would get the hint and leave me alone. "Mum sent me."

_'I told her to leave me alone.' _I thought exasperatedly, rolling my eyes to myself.

"I told her I didn't want to see anyone." I retorted waspishly, "I was very clear about it – why didn't she listen to me?" I scowled at Ron; if she had sent him then he should know that he hadn't been welcome.

"She's worried about you." Ron answered calmly, now he wasn't looking at me, but staring down into his own cup.

"Completely unjustifiably." I muttered under my breath, "I can't see why you all have to butt in all the time…" I grumbled, I was sure that Ron had heard me, but he didn't reply to my complaint.

"Verity sent us an owl last week." Ron told me, "She was asking when the shop is going to open again." A new twang of pain pitched in my stomach, and my heart suddenly felt like it was in an iron vice – I didn't want to think about the shop; I could sell it… yeah, I might do that.

"Hmmch." I made a disconsolate noise in my throat, trying to indicate my lack of interest in the current conversation. I looked down at my bare feet, they were incredibly dirty – there were black streaks of dust covering the top of my feet.

"George… we are worried about you. I just want you to know that; and I'll tell you, I'll piss off and leave you alone for as long as you want if you answer me a few things – just so I can put mum and dad's minds' at ease." Ron started slowly, placing the cup of half-drunk tea down on the floorboard at his feet; I stared at him, thinking whether answering his questions would be worth it to make him leave quicker.

"Okay." I grunted, crossing one arm across my chest tightly.

"When was the last time you slept?" Ron asked.

"You bloody woke me up trying to batter my door down!" I answered hotly.

"When did you last eat?" Ron didn't say anything about my fierce answer to his first question, but just carried on. I didn't say anything, wracking my mind for when exactly I had eaten something… all the days seemed to merge into one another…

"I… I can't remember. I've not been hungry." I eventually told him, Ron sighed quietly.

"There's one more question I have to ask you, but I doubt you're going to like me very much when I do." Ron said slowly, I said nothing and did not move while waiting for the last question. "You… You haven't-" He seemed to be struggling to get the words in order in his brain and to make them sound alright. "You haven't tried to… to kill yourself, or anything like that?" I goggled at him.

"What the hell?" I spat, my face contracting into a frown in confusion. "What sort of a question is that?"

"George, just answer me." Ron commanded firmly.

"No!" I shouted, annoyed that he had even asked me that question. "No! Why would I be that stupid? How could you-"

"Percy was." He cut over me, but very quietly; I fell silent as though I had been struck dumb.

"Wh…what?" My heart was being squeezed so tight in the vice in my chest that I thought it might stop.

"Percy… tried to kill himself…" Ron mumbled to the floor, sounding miserable. "Dad found him, took him to St. Mungos."

"Shit…" I whispered, feeling every breath catch in my throat. "Shit!"

"Yeah…" My stomach was now flipping over inside me, guilt was flooding into my vein and I didn't quite understand why. "I thought once the war was over that things would get better… I thought that once Voldemort was gone that we would all be able to go back to normal… look how wrong I was…" Ron sighed again, then looked up at me, directly into my eyes and his voice was thicker with emotion. "But for what little it's worth, I know Fred would be pleased with you… He'd want you to carry on with your life…"

I was shaking from head to foot, I couldn't tell whether it was from rage, or grief.

"Out." I choked, my voice cracking again.

"What…?" Ron started to question, but whatever the emotion that was coursing through me, it took over very quickly.

"_Get out! Out! NOW!" _I seized my cup of lukewarm tea and flung it as hard as I could at Ron, who swore in reply and leapt up off my bed where he had perched himself. "_OUT_!" I screamed, advancing towards him as he bolted towards the door to my flat, copping up his cup from the floor and lobbing it after him. It smashed into a thousand tiny pieces of white china, sending tea showering all over the floor. Ron was obviously standing just outside the door, he called through it;

"I'm sorry George. I'll be back some other time."

"Don't fucking bother! Fuck off and _leave me alone!_" I screamed through the door, but my voice was already not as strong with anger, upset was permeating it. I banged my head hard against the door which I had just thrown the cup at.

"I'm sorry." Ron repeated through the door; I clamped my mouth shut as tightly as I could to suppress the sob that was bubbling up from inside me.

* * *

><p>AN: I hope you've made it to the end of the first chapter! :) Thank you very much if you have! I'll post the next chapter VERY soon. I'm not going to beg for reviews, but I'd be really grateful if you'd leave some comments just letting me know what you think :)


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and will never make any money out of this WHATSOEVER!

A/N: After the War the Weasley family are reeling from Fred's death, from the point of view of George, Ron and Percy – following the twists and turns of their life as they learn to live without. _NOT SLASH! _Rated M for some explicit language and dark themes. Will contain references to self-harm and suicide, so could be triggering. Keep yourself safe and I hope you enjoy :)

This Chapter is in Ron's POV.

* * *

><p>"So?"<p>

"So what?" The words had slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them; I winced as my brain caught up with my mouth and I knew this was exactly the wrong thing to say to my mother.

"You know exactly what!" She snapped, slamming a cup down in front of me too harshly and sending half of the (mercifully) brown liquid spilling over the brim. She glared at me with her hands placed firmly upon her hips; dad was moving about behind her, half examining something that I couldn't quite see, but I could tell that he was listening to every word that I was saying.

"I saw him." I stated plainly, I felt the atmosphere in the kitchen tauten; mum and dad didn't move, but from the staircase I heard a scuffling noise. "Don't lurk on the staircase Ginny!" I raised my voice so I knew anyone standing on the bottom couple of steps would be able to hear me; I was right about her being there, she entered the kitchen and stood just inside the door. "He let me in after I spent about an hour knocking on his door. He wasn't happy about letting me in and he tried to get rid of me as quickly as he possibly could."

"He let you in?" Mum questioned instantly, "That's more than he did for the rest of us… How was he? Did he say much?"

"He looked awful… He said I'd just woken him up, but I'm not sure he'; slept for any length of time if I did…" I said, "He spent most of the time staring at the floor. He looked like he hadn't eaten in over a week – he said he couldn't remember the last time he had something to eat."

"I knew he should have been staying here instead of going off to that flat." My mum fretted, running her hands over her face, "Oh god, we should go and get him Arthur; we should go and bring him home."

"It's not going to work, he flung me out." I responded, shaking my head. "He doesn't want to see you, he didn't particularly want to see me and when I… when I mentioned Fred he went beserk." My voice trailed off towards the end; dad finally turned round, he had taken his glasses off and was rubbing the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb.

"No, Ron's right. If George doesn't want to see us then we should leave him alone for a while – we just have to keep trying, we'll get through to him eventually." He sounded tired, but what he was saying was correct. There was a short silence as mum seemed to consider arguing, but then her shoulders sagged, like she was accepting the truth in what dad had just said.

"I, uh… I told him about Percy." I looked down at my cup. If I thought the atmosphere had been stretched before then the tension, filling the space in between us, was so thick that it could have been cut with a spoon.

"Oh, you didn't?" Mum inquired as though that had been exactly the wrong thing to do.

I did." I answered defiantly. "And he did seem concerned about him! He reacted to that, everything else I asked him he just grunted and stared at the floor for… The only question he reacted to at all was the one where I asked – I asked whether he had done anything to hurt himself. He got annoyed when I asked, but he seemed genuinely… I don't think concerned is the right word, but he definitely reacted the strongest when I told him about Percy."

"What did you say to him that made him go beserk?" Ginny asked suddenly, it seemed that she had been pondering for a while.

"I…I told him Fred would have wanted him to carry on with his life." I mumbled into my cup.

"Well at least you were honest." Ginny shrugged, "I'd have said the same… Maybe I should." Mum and dad were now watching the conversation between Ginny and I, dad's glasses were still off and he looked more tired than he had done in the past few days. "Perhaps I should go and see him? I doubt he'd be any more receptive to me than he's been to the rest of you though…"

"I told him I'd go back." I told her, "He did tell me not to bother, but I will go back – maybe you could come too?" I suggested. "At least if there's two of us then he can't aim for both of our heads at once!" A small smile flickered onto Ginny's face, and I could feel myself smiling back at her. Dad replaced his glasses onto the bridge of his nose and turned away from us at the table. I revelled in the silence that followed as Ginny sat down at the table across from me and mum picked up her wand again to continue preparing food. They seemed to have finished with asking me questions about my visit to George; I had a few questions I wanted to ask them, but I wasn't entirely sure to ask. Eventually I decided that the best way to go about it was just to be direct;

"Have you been to see Percy today?" I finally asked. It seemed that both mum and dad were considering acting like they hadn't heard my question, but Ginny answered for them.

"Yes, dad went earlier while you were visiting George."

"How was he?" I pressed on with the subject, understanding that they probably didn't want to answer but I wanted to know.

"The same as he's been the past couple of weeks." Dad answered sighing. "But at least he's somewhere definitely safe – the healers will make sure he's alright. They said that he's showing some improvement, which is reassuring."

"Good." I muttered.

I had always looked up to my elder brothers, being the youngest son; and I had always thought I had to live up to what they had done… but now, since the end of the war, I felt a lot older and a lot more independent from them. I had hated Percy for the past couple of years, but he had reconciled himself when he came back to fight with the rest of us. He had always been in control of every aspect of his life, he had known who he was and where he was going – but now he seemed to have lost that control and that knowledge. George, too, had always been tough; Fred and him had gone against the grain and done well. I never would have thought that Percy or George would fall apart – but without Fred, George was acting as though the most important part of himself had gone; he was lost and floundering to find his own way. Percy felt guilty – he had told us that, he felt like he should have been the one that died rather than Fred. Now the war was over, now I didn't have to worry about Voldemort taking over, I had found my way – and they had lost theirs completely. I hoped they found it again soon, because with both of them in the state they were, life wasn't going to be as easy as I had envisaged it would be…

* * *

><p>AN: Chapter 2, sorry I've taken a while to update! I hope you enjoy this! Will update more soon!


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and will never make any money out of this WHATSOEVER!

A/N: After the War the Weasley family are reeling from Fred's death, from the point of view of George, Ron and Percy – following the twists and turns of their life as they learn to live without. _NOT SLASH! _Rated M for some explicit language and dark themes. Will contain references to self-harm and suicide, so could be triggering. Keep yourself safe and I hope you enjoy :)

This Chapter is in George's POV.

* * *

><p>I raked through the drawer on the right hand side of the writing desk for a pair of tweezers; I rummaged in the back of the drawer until my fingers found the cold metal of the set of tweezers. The bottom of my foot was covered in a layer of reddish-brown dried blood, and bright red blood was oozing out of a cut that had a white piece of china impaled into it. I tried to fasten the ends of the tweezers onto the fragments of broken cup that I had evidently stood on after throwing it at Ron. The metal clinked lightly as it made contact with the china and I pulled hard; I brought the tweezers up to my face with the blood stained china still held between the two prongs of metal and examined it intensely. It was a particularly long, sharp fragment; I was extremely surprised that it hadn't hurt when I stood on it. In my preoccupation with the slice that I had pulled out of my foot, I hadn't realised that the cut I had removed the foreign body from was bubbling with red blood. I laid the tweezers and china down on the writing desk – I was now staring fascinated as the blood swelled into a bubble and then burst, sending a long thin trickle of blood down the rest of my foot and eventually dripping off onto the floor. I did nothing to stem the flow, and turned my attention to the shattered mess of broken cups near the door. I knew I should clean that up to prevent the impalement of the same, or the other, foot – but at this very moment I could hardly muster up the energy to get up from the chair that I had sat down upon. The questions that Ron had asked me were still ringing in my head; <em>'When was the last time you slept?', 'When did you last eat?', 'You haven't tried to kill yourself or anything like that?'<em>. I could hear the way I had contemptuously answered all of his questions – and felt oddly guilty, the look of concern on Ron's face was evidence enough that the family were worried that I might do something stupid… like Percy had.

I couldn't get my head around that – Percy… _Percy? _I couldn't imagine Percy doing anything like… like that. Ron said dad had found him and taken him to St. Mungos, so it sounded as though whatever he had done was serious. I wondered exactly what he had done… I sat buried in my thoughts about Percy, and considering just why he had ended up like that. He wasn't the one who had lost part of himself…

_'But does that make it worse?' _A little voice inside my head whispered, _'Just because he was your twin does that make the feeling worse for you than it should for Percy? He was Percy's brother too…' _I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, and kept them closed until I could see shooting white lights behind my eyelids.

_'Percy couldn't possibly miss him as much as I do.' _I thought, _'Percy had hardly seen him, Percy didn't think the two of us were worth bothering about.' _

_'That doesn't mean he didn't care at all, his priorities were different…' _The little voice was talking to me again; it felt like it was whispering from the very depth of my brain, right at the back of my skull. _'George, you're being pathetic! Yes, it's hard for you. Of course you're hurting! But you're not the only person to have felt like this!' _That little voice spoke sense; but it was telling me exactly what I didn't want to hear. I blocked it out, my own thoughts louder to drown it out completely:

_'No. None of them can know how I'm feeling… They don't know what this is like. They don't understand how I feel! They don't understand that it's like being cut in half… They don't know how lonely it feels to be the one left from two…'_

Without realising what I was doing, I had stood up and walked over to the window. I stared out into the indigo night sky, perching myself of the bed; leaving the mass of broken china by the door and a puddle of drying blood next to the writing desk. It was going to be a long night…

* * *

><p>AN: I'm sorry it's taken me a while to upload this chapter, and I'm sorry it's so short – but uni work has kept me busy the past week! I have a great idea for the next chapter though, so I'll try and upload it in the next couple of days! I'd love to know what you think about this story! :)


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and will never make any money out of this WHATSOEVER!

A/N: After the War the Weasley family are reeling from Fred's death, from the point of view of George, Ron and Percy – following the twists and turns of their life as they learn to live without. _NOT SLASH! _Rated M for some explicit language and dark themes. Will contain references to self-harm and suicide, so could be triggering. Keep yourself safe and I hope you enjoy :)

This Chapter is in George's POV.

* * *

><p><em>'Fred's dead. Fred's gone. He's never coming back. It's all my fault. Fred's dead. Fred's gone. He's never coming back. It's all my fault…' <em>The relentless circle of thoughts hadn't stopped since the war had ended. _'Fred's dead. Fred's gone. He's never coming back. It's all my fault…' _

The bright white light was burning through my closed eyelids. There was no chance of me going back to sleep, not with the amount of artificial and sun light that were illuminating the ward all around me, but the longer I kept my eyes closed the longer they thought I was still sleep… I couldn't keep up the act all day unfortunately… There'd come a point where I would have to open my eyes and interact with people – I was determined to put it off for as long as I possibly could though. Yet pretending to be asleep couldn't dull the constant circle of thoughts repeating inside my head from the moment my mind's consciousness wakes up: _'Fred's dead. Fred's gone. He's never coming back. It's all my fault.' _I sincerely hoped that those thoughts would stop looping themselves in my head at some point, preferably soon – the more I tried to ignore them, the louder they seemed to shout. The louder they shouted, the more I believed them, and the more horrifically guilty I felt about Fred dying. I twitched my arms under the covers of the bed; they were still heavily bandaged, I shouldn't expect myself to heal so quickly. Not that I had intended, not as I had planned. And now I was stuck in a place I didn't want to be – in a life I didn't want to be living…

What a failure I was! That became clear as I lay with my eyes closed, feigning sleep – my life had been one monumental failure. I had failed to see the truth when it was staring right at me, I had been willing to ditch my family and chase after a promotion, my ambition had overcome what was important. I had told them I didn't want to be a Weasley – I had told them they were poor because they followed and believed people like Dumbledore rather than accepting the truth of the ministry… and I had believed it – all until the Death Eaters took over. I had to re-evaluate what was the truth, and come to the conclusion that I had been the one who was wrong for all that time. I had gone back to fight with them, to say I was sorry and hope that they'd accept me back – I could hardly believe it when they accepted me back. Then Fred died. I knew from the moment that the wall had blown apart that it was supposed to be me that was killed – Fred just got caught in the crossfire. He wasn't meant to go, I was – I was the traitor.

"Percy." Healer Tabslett's voice came from nearby my bed. "Percy I know you're awake." How the hell did he know I was awake? I opened one of my eyes a fraction of an inch; I could see vaguely that he was standing at the end of my bed. I reckoned he must have seen my eyelids flickering because he shifted slightly and leant on the rail at the end of my bed. "You can pretend to be asleep for as long as you want, but that's not going to stop me talking to you." I felt like sighing, but I didn't – I reluctantly opened my eyes and moved carefully, sitting up in my bed. "Would you like some breakfast?" He asked, I was staring at the spot where my feet were creating a lump in my bed covers and shrugged. "Right – I'll get something for you." The urge I was feeling to swear explicitly faded only slightly as he walked away from the end of my bed. He returned quickly carrying a tray – I could see that the only other inhabitant of the ward I was in had a tray of food propped in front of him. The other two beds in the ward were vacant, and had been since I arrived in the ward. Toast, three little pots of butter, jam and marmalade, a small bowl of milk and cereal, a glass of orange juice and a mug of tea.

"I'm not hungry." I stated very clearly. "Will you take the tray away?" I looked up at Healer Tabslett, who had an unusually stern look on his face. "Please." He didn't even reply to me, he just turned and walked away, leaving the tray with me.

Pulling my arms out from underneath the bed covers I examined my bandaged forearms. My hands were hard to move because the bandages were so stiffly wrapped around my arms. I fiddled with the food on the tray, but not eating it.

_'Fred's dead. Fred's gone. He's never coming back. It's all my fault.' _I fingered the toast, listening to the circle of thoughts and staring blankly at the rail at the foot of my bed. Until someone broke my internal daydreaming;

"There's a letter for you." Healer Tabslett was back, holding a ruffled piece of parchment in his hand which was extended out in offering for me. "An owl came this morning." He explained as I stared at the piece of parchment, eventually I reached out and took it. "Are you going to eat any of that?" He pointed at the tray now as my hands fell into my lap with the bit of parchment held in between them. I shook my head, I heard him sigh. "I can't let you stop eating altogether Percy; if you continue to refuse food then we'll end up doing something about that too. I get the impression that you're an intelligent guy Percy – if only you'd tell us what's making you act so stupid." He picked up the tray and left; I stared after him, his last words suddenly drowning out the circle of thoughts.

_'If only you'd tell us what's making you act so stupid.' _I didn't know whether I felt more angry, or like I wanted to cry… I wasn't acting stupid – I was acting completely logically given the circumstances.

After a few minutes I remembered the parchment in my hands and turned it over to unseal it. There were only two lines on the whole of the bit of parchment;

_'Ron told me what you did. I really hope you're okay. George.' _

I felt as though I had just had been drenched in freezing cold liquid – my stomach and insides encased in frozen liquid nitrogen. It was unbearable; the agony that ripped through my nerves, tearing at the fibres of my muscles and bones – it felt like the cruciatus curse had been cast over me. It was all I could do not to howl out in anguish that was coursing through me. Hot tears were stinging at the back of my eyes, I was resisting the urge to crumple up the piece of parchment; instead I dropped it onto the bed covered my face with my hands. I couldn't suppress the pain that I was feeling for any longer, I felt the hot wet tears splashing onto my hands and fingers.

I couldn't understand – I couldn't comprehend how George could have written that note! Why didn't George hate me? I had been the one left in place of his twin – I could've taken his fury, I would have received his hatred gladly… Maybe then my feelings of self-loathing would be justified. How was it possible for George not to hate me, like I hated myself?

* * *

><p>AN: I am SO sorry that this has taken me so long to update- uni work, being ill and a whole load of other things have kept me on my toes…. I'll promise to update the next chapter quicker! :)


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and will never make any money out of this WHATSOEVER!

A/N: After the War the Weasley family are reeling from Fred's death, from the point of view of George, Ron and Percy – following the twists and turns of their life as they learn to live without. _NOT SLASH! _Rated M for some explicit language and dark themes. Will contain references to self-harm and suicide, so could be triggering. Keep yourself safe and I hope you enjoy :)

This Chapter is in George's POV.

* * *

><p>My quill was poised over a slightly grubby piece of parchment; I wasn't entirely sure who this piece of parchment was for… The last one had been for Percy, but I had known that before I even found the parchment. Now I was sitting at the desk with a quill in my hand with no idea why I had pulled out another sheaf of parchment.<p>

I was staring into blank space near the door of the room, I was about to give up and put the parchment, quill and ink bottle away again when I realised that in my daydreaming I had written one word – Ron. I had sent a letter to Percy for clear reason, but why had I written Ron's name? Maybe I was feeling guilty about throwing Ron out a few days ago?

_'Ron, Sorry for throwing those cups at your head. I'm not really sure why I did it. George.' _

There – maybe that would ease my "guilty" conscience, even though I wasn't exactly sure that I even _was _feeling guilty about it. I'd have to wait until the owl came back from delivering the note to Percy before I could send this one.

Today was the first day in a long time – the first day that I intended to do anything, the first day that I had made a plan for what I wanted to do today. Wake up, shower, go out, come home, go to bed. It was simple; I had just been in the house so long that I had grown accustomed to not having to do anything, then days had blended into one another and weeks had passed without me realising. But today was going to be different, today I was going to go out and do something, even if that was just doing food shopping…

But I had woken up and been distracted by writing a note to Percy. Now I was still sitting staring into space, wondering whether I might change my plan so I did it tomorrow. I would have a shower, then I'd decide.

An hour long shower, maybe it was longer than that… I wasn't exactly sure, well I hardly timed the length that I was in the shower for, but by the time I got out, the sky outside was much lighter than it had been when I went in. The owl I had sent with the note to Percy was perched on the kitchen window ledge; I noticed it as I stepped out of the small bathroom and swing that window open (with some difficulty) and let the owl hop in.

"I have another letter for you to deliver." I said quietly to the owl, it hooted up at me as I carried it through to my writing desk. I folded the piece of parchment that was going to be destined for Ron and attached it onto the owl's leg by a small leather strap. "This one's for Ron, alright? He'll probably be at The Burrow, I'd take it there." I told it, before letting it down onto the window sill so it could take off. Ron would get that message in an hour or two, and, no doubt, he would come to see me – he would want to know why I was suddenly feeling remorseful for my actions! With the thought of Ron coming to visit, I decided that I should go out, walk along to the shop and buy some milk so that Ron could have milk in his tea.

I pulled on some clothes, taking no consideration as to what I might look like; and went to leave to go to the shop. However even as I pulled on shoes there was a strange weight pulling down on my insides – I couldn't explain it, but it felt like my stomach was tensing with the idea of leaving the flat. Trying to shake off the feeling, I made sure I had money and went to leave.

As the door of the flat snapped shut, the feeling intensified. I could feel that my knees were shaking vaguely and I was breathing hard through my nose. The first couple of steps took me towards the stairs; but when I got there I thought the whole world was about to collapse in upon me… My head was spinning, it felt oddly like it had been detached from the rest of my body – my legs seemed to now be made of jelly, they were shaking, but at the same time they felt like they had been filled with cement which had now set, immovable.

I clutched the handle bar of the banister, holding on for what felt like dear life; a weight that felt like it could be from a person that was standing on my chest, becoming heavier and heavier by the second. Hands seemed to be closing round my windpipe in a strangle-hold. My arms were tingling, I was hot all over and then freezing cold; I couldn't do it, I couldn't breathe – there were dark circles encroaching on the corners of my vision as I relinquished my grip on the banister and turned back to the door of my flat. My fingers were numb as I fumbled in my pocket trying to hook out the keys to my flat, but my fingers clumsily caught and dropped them more than once; all I needed to do was get back into the flat, then it'd all be alright. Just get back into the flat…

The key missed the lock four times, I counted as my chest felt tighter and tighter, the weight was getting heavier. On the fifth try the key succeeded in sliding into the lock, I turned it in a frenzied manner and slammed the door, my knees were visibly trembling even as I sat. I dropped my flat keys and they fell with a tinkling clatter as I put my hands up to my face. Very slowly the knot that seemed to have restricted my throat was being untangled and air was rushing into my lungs and making my head reel with the sudden amount of oxygen that was entering my bloodstream.

I didn't know how long I sat there for – as long as I wanted, as long as I needed until I could breathe and everything came back into focus.

I couldn't… I _couldn't _leave the flat!

* * *

><p>AN: Yet again- I apologise for the length of the break in between I last posted! I hope you enjoy :)


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and will never make any money out of this WHATSOEVER!

A/N: After the War the Weasley family are reeling from Fred's death, from the point of view of George, Ron and Percy – following the twists and turns of their life as they learn to live without. _NOT SLASH! _Rated M for some explicit language and dark themes. Will contain references to self-harm and suicide, so could be triggering. Keep yourself safe and I hope you enjoy :)

This Chapter is in Ron's POV.

* * *

><p>"George wrote to me." Percy said very quietly; I sat next to his bed in St. Mungos', this was the first thing he had said to me since I arrived.<p>

"What did he say?" I asked, trying to make my voice sound light, as though this piece of news wasn't as important as I knew it was; Percy remained silent for a very long time. His right hand was fiddling with the bandage wrapped tightly on his left arm, his nervous state was amplified by his minimal movements.

"That you'd told him what I'd done, and - " He stopped very suddenly, I could see his lip was trembling ever so slightly. "And that he hoped I was okay." So George had listened to me when I told him about Percy, and he had obviously been thinking about him enough to write to him.

"Have you written back to him?" Percy shook his head quickly.

"I… I wouldn't know what to say." He mumbled, averting his gaze from anywhere near where I was. I felt like sighing; it was like I was banging my head off a brick wall, I was getting absolutely nowhere with him.

"Dad got a letter today, from the healer in charge of this ward." I told Percy, who showed no indication of listening to what I was telling him: "He said that if you're going to keep resisting treatment then they're just going to send you home."

"Resisting…?" Percy started, sounding incredulous, then cut off sharply. "Resisting treatment? What treatment? I haven't had any "treatment!"."

"I'm just telling you what the letter said!" I replied hotly, "I don't know what they have or haven't been offering you! Maybe you need to ask the healer what "treatment" they're meant to have been offering you if you don't know…"

"No thanks, I'd rather just come home than stay in here any longer." Percy mumbled and turned his attention back to unpicking the bandage on his left arm thread by thread.

"But when you were at home you didn't want to be there, did you?" I questioned, Percy looked even more uncomfortable.

"I could just go to my flat – it's not far away from here." He seemed to be thinking aloud more than talking to me. "That way I wouldn't have to worry anyone…"

"If you think you're going to be able to go back to your flat on your own then you can think again!" I cut over him very loudly, he looked blankly at me. "Mum and dad are going mental about George being in his flat on his own – do you really think that they'll let you go back to your flat on your own? Especially after…" I trailed off; the two of us were both staring down at Percy's arms. There was a considerably extended pause, which neither of us really knew how to break. "Have you spoken to anyone about why-"

"No." Percy snapped, cutting me off mid-sentence; for a moment I sat stunned at the sharpness of his tone before continuing in a slightly less accusatory way.

"Maybe that's why they're saying you've been resisting treatment?" I suggested.

"Well if that's the reason then it's stupid! They haven't asked me about it – they haven't spoken to me about it at all!" He retorted wildly.

"If they had asked you about it… or if one of them came and spoke to you; asked about it now, would you actually talk to them? Or would you blank them out like you've been blanking us out?" Percy glared fiercely at me for a split second. "Well you _have _been blocking us out Perce! Mum and dad, and I have asked you what's going on with you, to see if we can help – and you've downright ignored us all!"

"Well…" Percy started, but I continued to speak over him.

"I'm fed up of being the middle man! You say you want to get out of here and go home, well do you want to swap? Because I'd rather be in here than at home with our wreck of a family!" I was tired of trying to keep the peace – tired of tiptoeing around trying to avoid hurting anyone's feelings. "Every day I hear mum crying – every morning she is always in a bad mood because while she was asleep she had forgotten what had happened. That Fred is dead." I saw Percy flinch as though I had brandished my wand in his face. "That George seems to want to cut himself off from all reality and that you… well, only you know what's going on in your head! It just seems like our family has disintegrated and I _hate _it! Do you think that Fred would want this of us? Don't you think that he would have wanted us to pull together and support each other?" I was tired, exasperated at putting all my effort into situations which appeared to be fruitless; tired of being the peace keeper. Percy looked sheepish, "I don't care whether you don't like talking, or don't want to talk – but find out why they're saying you're resisting treatment and sort it! Because if you don't I think mum and dad are going to have a nervous breakdown or something…" The moment I finished speaking I wished I hadn't said anything – the look on Percy's face… I had to go and put my big foot in my mouth, didn't I? The silence between us rose and swelled as I looked down at my knees and Percy continued to stare at me, dumbfounded.

"I'll ask them." Percy said eventually, breaking the silence. "I'll ask them what treatment I'm meant to have been resisting."

"Thank you." I responded, rather more stiffly than I would have liked; the knot in my chest that had formed since I had seen the look on Percy's face when I finished speaking.

"Are mum and dad angry?" Percy asked.

"Angry…? Why would they be angry?" I asked slightly confused.

"At m, at what I did." He explained.

"No!" I replied, "They're not angry Perce, not angry at all! I think they're confused at… at why you did it, and upset that they haven't been able to do anything to help." Percy's eyebrows were knit together, he looked deep in concentration for a few moments.

"I'll sort this… I will." He muttered, "I don't know how, but I will."

"Will you let us help you?" I asked, not sure whether his muttering was directed at me or himself.

"I'll try." I sighed, almost in relief. Maybe I hadn't actually put my foot in my mouth – maybe my outburst was exactly what Percy had needed, maybe he needed someone to tell him to pull himself together for him to start doing something rather than just sit doing nothing and blocking everyone out. I looked at him; his face was still moulded into a look of intense though.

I wasn't sure whether I imagined it; or whether there was a small glimmer in Percy's eyes – that would hopefully signify the start of a change…

* * *

><p>AN: I'm going to apologise one last time. I'm really sorry that I've taken forever to update- I've been working a heck of a lot of overtime and I've had loads of uni assignments so that's why I've not updated this sooner. I'm sorry – but please let me know what you think! :)


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and will never make any money out of this WHATSOEVER!

A/N: After the War the Weasley family are reeling from Fred's death, from the point of view of George, Ron and Percy – following the twists and turns of their life as they learn to live without. _NOT SLASH! _Rated M for some explicit language and dark themes. Will contain references to self-harm and suicide, so could be triggering. Keep yourself safe and I hope you enjoy :)

This Chapter is in George's POV.

* * *

><p>Where the hell was Ron? Why hadn't he turned up yet? I had sent that letter ages ago – it was <em>bound <em>to have gotten to The Burrow by now! So… why hadn't he come yet?

I had locked my front door, drawn all of the curtains over the window and sat in the pitch darkness. For some reason the darkness felt extremely welcome, in compare with the glaring brightness of the world outside. I felt strange – like all of a sudden I had been trapped, confined: first within my own body, then within the four walls of my flat. It was like my mind had been boxed in and couldn't get itself free. I was shivering uncontrollably from head to foot – I couldn't quite explain why either; I wasn't cold, I wasn't ill… although that was debatable… an inability to leave the flat without almost passing out could probably be counted as an illness of some sort.

Maybe the owl hadn't gotten to The Burrow yet? That could be why Ron hadn't come yet… or maybe he wasn't at the Burrow, and the owl hadn't found him yet? Yeah, that would be the reason for why he hadn't replied yet; why he hadn't come and found me when I actually needed him to…

But in that letter that I had sent I hadn't asked him to come, I had just assumed that he would appear when he received it. It looked like I had been mistaken…

Or maybe he was still angry at me for throwing those cuts at him? Maybe he wouldn't accept the apology in the letter…

Oh god! It could be any one of those reasons… and that was why Ron wasn't here. And why I was sitting in the dark, wishing that someone would come and find me…

* * *

><p>AN: Sorry that this chapter is so short- but the next one is HUGE! I'll try and post it soon too! I wouldn't mind a review – or 20 – so if you're reading this please let me know what you think! :)


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and will never make any money out of this WHATSOEVER!

A/N: After the War the Weasley family are reeling from Fred's death, from the point of view of George, Ron and Percy – following the twists and turns of their life as they learn to live without. _NOT SLASH! _Rated M for some explicit language and dark themes. Will contain references to self-harm and suicide, so could be triggering. Keep yourself safe and I hope you enjoy :)  
>I wouldn't mind a review (or 20) ;)<p>

This Chapter is in Ginny's POV.

* * *

><p><em>Tttrrriiiiiikkk! Ttttttrrrriiiiiiiikkk!<em>

"Shut up." I flicked a small piece of spellotape at the owl that had positioned itself on the work top near the sink and had been tweeting since it arrived almost an hour ago…

_Tttrrrriiiiiikk! Tttttrrrriiiiiiiiiik!_

"I said shut up!" I repeated more loudly at it; it waggled it's leg ferociously at me even more loudly. It had a letter attached to its leg, a letter I had already checked and knew it was addressed to Ron.

_Tttttrrriiiiiiik!_

"Okay, alright!" I sighed, placing down my quill on the kitchen table and standing up.

_Tttttrrrrrrrriiiiik! _

"Shut up! I can't get this letter off your leg if you're making that racket!" I told the owl off and it instantly clamped its beak shut so I could untie the letter hooked quite firmly to its leg. Once I had severed the cord that connected the owl's leg and the piece of parchment, the owl began hopping up and down on the spot; wanting to be let free again. "Alright! You couldn't be more impatient if you tried!" I picked up the small owl, opened the window above the sink and practically launched the owl out of it before it could start twittering at me again. I put the letter addressed to Ron on the kitchen table, on top of the piles of various books and assorted scraps of parchment; and sat down at where I had been at the table.

I attempted to go back to what I had been doing, but the letter kept drawing my eye from the other side of the table… who would be writing to Ron? Who would send him a letter? It was a bit strange… most of the people knew he would see at some point or another so there would be no need for them to write to him… I realised that I had been staring at the handwriting on the parchment; it looked familiar for some reason, but I couldn't quite place it…

Ron had been gone for quite a while now – he had left early this morning to go and visit Percy. I wasn't sure whether he was going to visit Hermione after he left St. Mungos, but even if he was going to I hadn't expected him to be this long. My quill was held above my own piece of parchment for so long as I stared at the letter than I had allowed the ink to drop off the tip of the quill and create several large blots. I laid my quill down when I realised what I had done, and attempted to get rid of the four very large splodges… but I couldn't stop thinking about that letter… one little look wouldn't hurt… I could always reseal it afterwards and Ron wouldn't be any the wiser…

But it was addressed to Ron, and he shouldn't be much longer now – what if he arrived back and caught me reading it? I was still trying to figure out, who would be writing to Ron? Not Harry, I knew exactly what Harry's handwriting looked like… Hermione definitely didn't have a scrawl like that, (and why would Hermione write to Ron? She practically lived at the Burrow while we weren't at school… ) so who's handwriting was it?

One look would do no harm! I laid down my quill and wiped the ink off my hands with a towel so I wouldn't leave any inky fingerprints on the scroll. I slid my finger under the seal and flicked it open. There were only two sentences on the parchment:

_'Ron, _

_ Sorry for throwing those cups at your head. I'm not really sure why I did it. George.'_

I stared down at the note – that's why I had recognised the handwriting, it was George's! Although it looked more shaken and untidy than what his handwriting used to look like. George had sent Ron a letter to apologise for throwing cups at Ron's head the last time he had visited; why hadn't he just said that to his face? Then again, Ron hadn't gone back since that incident – he kept saying he wanted to give George enough time to calm down. It seemed like he had calmed down now, he would expect Ron to visit him when he got this letter… that's probably why he had sent it. I tapped the parchment once with my wand and it resealed itself. I placed it back down on top of the pile I had picked it up from and went back to my work. However now I couldn't concentrate on my work even more! I was now thinking about George and why he had sent the letter…

After another ten minutes of staring blankly at the letter sitting sealed again, moving my quill up and down in my fingers and thinking deeply. Very suddenly I made up my mind, standing up and sending my ink bottle flying (I was glad there wasn't an awful lot left still in the bottle); I picked up my jacket from next to the door and left.

_Bang, bang, bang!_

I rubbed the side of my hand that I had just thumped on the door with, and waited expectantly for George to answer. Once I was sure that I had been stood there for over a minute I decided to knock again;

_Bang, bang, bang!_

There was a loud clatter from behind the door and it opened a fraction of an inch. I could see one of George's eyes peering out through the crack that he had opened; even from the tiny bit of him I could see he looked awful… There was a dark circle under his eye and the surrounding skin looked pale and waxy; he reminded me of what Lupin used to look like on the few days that followed the full moon… exhausted, beaten down – I registered the shock that flitted into his eye when he saw me.

"Ginny?" He opened the door a couple more inches wider and I could see past him into the pitch black room, where all the lights were turned off and the curtains were pulled shut. "Why… why are you here?" Halfway through him speaking I pushed past him and into his flat, seeing as it was clear he wasn't going to invite me in. George snapped the door shut pretty quickly behind me. I tried to think what to say to his question; I couldn't say that I had read the note he had sent to Ron and decided to come and see him… so instead of answering, I skirted around the question.

"Did I wake you up?" I asked, moving over towards the window.

"No." George replied instantly.

"Then what are you doing sitting in the dark?" I pulled the curtains apart fiercely, and saw George flinch considerably when sunlight flooded into the room. He looked much worse when there was light in the room, maybe that was why he was hiding in the dark. I could see that his eyes were following me as I moved away from his window. His hair looked clean, like it had been washed recently (which had to be a good sing); he was dressed more smartly than what I would expect for him if he was going to be on his own inside his flat all day. He was dressed relatively smartly and looked clean, maybe it was a sign that he was improving…

"Are you going out somewhere?" I asked quickly, noticing that his feet were bare and his shoes were in an untidy heap over by the door.

"No." He answered sharply, but there was an undertone in his voice which made it sound like something was not quite right. "Why are you here?" He repeated, but his voice was even shakier this time.

"I'm your sister!" I flicked my hair over my shoulder and stared at him. "Am I not allowed to visit my brother if I so wish?" He shifted in an uncomfortable manner and became suddenly interested in his feet.

"I suppose…" He shrugged, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. There was a silence as he stood there – hands in pockets, staring at the floor.

"Well? Are you going to make me a cup of tea, or do I have to make it for myself?" I asked him, not waiting for him to respond I moved to go towards the kitchen.

"I… I don't have any milk…" He cut in quickly, I paused and looked at him; he had sounded so defeated when he said that.

"It's alright… I'm fine without milk." He followed right behind me into the kitchen and stood mutely as I put the kettle on. "Do you want one?" I indicated to a mug, he shrugged; I took that as a yes, turned a mug over and placed a tea bag in it. I looked sideways at him whilst I poured the water into the mugs; his face looked thinner… I hadn't really noticed it before, but now I was closer to him it was really noticeable. "Do you want sugar in your tea?" I asked, fishing out the tea bag and dropping it in the bin, I saw him shaking his head. "Alright." I picked up both mugs and walked straight passed him back into the larger room that he used as bedroom and living room combined. "Here you go…" I put his mug down on his writing desk and perched upon the edge of the closest bed. I saw George flinch ever so slightly again. "So, how have you been?" I asked him, raising my mug to my lips but not actually taking a drink.

"Ah… well… you know…" George muttered vaguely, shuffling his feet where he stood; I watched him shifting about for a few more moments before speaking.

"George, I know you must be feeling shit, you don't have to dress it up with me… alright?" I told him, trying to look him in the eye but he was staring resolutely at the floor. "Don't bother pretending everything is alright when it's clearly not…" George was still gazing at the floor, I wondered whether he was going to get mad like he had one with Ron, but he didn't seem to want to move or look up. "So… how are you?"

"To…" He started hoarsely, then cleared his throat. "To put it in your words, shit." He picked up his mug from the edge of the writing desk and took a drink – probably to procrastinate from having to talk again. I waited; wanting him to have enough time to gather his thoughts into coherent sentences. "And I don't need to be psychoanalysed, alright?" He was glaring at me suspiciously from over the rim of his mug.

"I'm not here to psychoanalyse you!" I retorted hotly, "You can wallow as much as you want for all I care!"

"So that's why mum, dad and Ron have all been round trying to get through to me?" He sounded angry now.

"It may have escaped your notice, but I'm not mum, dad, or Ron! To be honest I think what you're doing is perfectly natural! You might be isolating yourself, but at least that's doing something to express how you're feeling! You're not pretending everything is fine when it's actually all going to shit!" The reply flooded out before I had the chance to sensor it; I could see George's hands were shaking around his mug. "You're not the only person who misses him George." His hands were still trembling and he was staring at me like I was speaking sacrilegiously; I wondered whether this was the point that he had thrown those cups at Ron. "Stop looking at me like that George! You know what I've just said is true!" There was a long lingering moment where he looked like he might argue. He didn't speak for the longest time, but then his features softened and he looked down at his feet again.

"At least you haven't lost half of yourself…" George mumbled, breaking the silence in between us. "You've not lost your identity."

"But… neither have you…?" I questioned.

"But I have! Because who am I? I'm George Weasley – and there's no George without F-" He cut off abruptly before he came to Fred's name. "We're the Weasley _twins_- a duo; it doesn't work as a singularity…"

"George, that's not your entire identity! You're as much a singular as you were part of a duo." I said. "But I understand what you mean – none of us are going to miss him in the same way that you will… I think that's a given, George; but that doesn't mean that we're hurting significantly less either." I paused and took a sip of my tea, thinking about what I wanted to say next, eventually I decided: "I feel like I've lost one of my best friends." I started, "It's just so difficult to comprehend that he's actually gone – I keep expecting him to just walk through the door, but he's never going to, not anymore… Every time I think about him I remember the three of us, laughing at your jokes… I remember when you both went to Hogwarts in your first year, and I cried for three days straight because I couldn't go with you – mum wrote to you and made you promise that you'd come home for Christmas and cheer me up!" I was reminiscing now; I had been eight when the twins had started at Hogwarts. "And to cheer me up in the meantime you wrote me a letter, and told me all about Hogwarts, how wonderful it was – how I'd love it when I started – but also how you missed seeing me." I looked at George and caught him staring at me rather blankly. "You told me not to be sad; that you weren't gone forever and that you'd see me soon."

"That was his idea… the letter." George explained, shrugging his shoulders.

"It was from both of you." I insisted, "But I remember it, because it was the first time that anyone had actually treated me like I was grown up enough to understand what was going on."

"It wasn't me – it was all his idea… he was good with people like that…" George repeated.

"Stop it – you were as much involved as he was, and you're just as good with people!" I commanded, George didn't reply.

"I don't know what you all expect of me…" George finally admitted, "I just want to be left on my own!" He seemed insistent, but I didn't quite believe his conviction.

"Will you come back when you're done with being on your own?" I asked him quietly. "I don't want to lose you as well."

"Yes." He replied, his voice wavering. "I just want to be on my own to process and get my head around… round everything… wait, what do you mean?" I glared at him, did he really not understand?

"Fred is dead. Mum and dad seem to be teetering on the edge of nervous breakdown. Percy, well… you've heard what Percy tried to do, haven't you?" George nodded at me. "Well, I don't know what's going on in his head; none of us have been able to get through to him. He told dad he was determined to kill himself. Dad was distraught because St. Mungos' keep saying that Percy's not co-operating with them, and unless he starts working with them they can't do anything, and if he doesn't then they're going to send him home." I felt I may be rambling now – but George had asked me what I meant, so I was going to explain; I sighed. "They'll send him home for him to try again, and we might not be so lucky in finding him next time…" I paused, looking at George. "So I don't want to lose you. I don't want this family to be completely fucked, you see!" George blinked at my choice of words. "I miss him! And I miss you too – and I don't want to have to miss you…" I didn't care that I was rambling anymore, or that the back of my throat suddenly felt like it was searing apart and tears were burning in the back of my eyes.

"Of course I would come back." George told me, but both of us could hear the longing in his voice. His mug was shaking again, instinctively I could tell that he wasn't being dishonest – but there was something that didn't quite sit right. Without stopping to think properly I spoke;

"George, is something going on? I mean, something troubling you right now?"

"No…" He said, but now I knew something was _definitely _wrong – his voice was shaking almost as much as his hands were.

"George?" I started but he cut over me.

"I'd like you to go please." His voice was still weak and shaky, but he seemed to have made up his mind, I stared at him blankly. "Please?"

"No!" I objected firmly, he seemed taken aback. "No!" I repeated, "George something is up, something's shaken you in the past five minutes and I want you to tell me what it is!"

"Please…!" George pleaded imploringly, his voice now sounded full of emotion like he was struggling to stop himself from tearing up. I didn't move – I didn't reply and I think he took that as my refusal. "What if I don't want to? What if I never want to come home? What if I just want to lock myself in here forever?" I couldn't believe how hysterical he sounded. "What if I never leave this room for the rest of my life?"

"Is that what you want George?" I questioned tentatively.

"No! I really – no! But… but I, I can't!" He stuttered; I couldn't believe this, he put his face in his hands and then ran them through his hair. His face had drained of all colour – he now looked sheet white, this was maybe the closest he had ever been to properly breaking down.

"You can't what?" I coaxed gently.

"Leave…" He stated rather matter of factly. "I physically can't." I didn't understand what he meant exactly, so I waited – hoping that he would expand upon what he had just said, after a few strained moments he did continue: "When I wrote… I wrote a letter to Ron this morning." I shifted slightly on the edge of the bed feeling a little uncomfortable. "And I thought that when he got it he might come and visit. I know that Ron takes milk in his tea – so I decided that I'd go out and buy some cause I haven't done any shopping in a while…" I thought back to his outcry earlier on when he had tried to stop me making tea because he didn't have any milk. "But I couldn't… I got outside the door, and… and…" I had never seen George like this before, he looked diminished and so pale that I was sure he might faint, or throw up, at any moment. "I couldn't. I couldn't get any further than the top of the stairs, then I thought the world was going to collapse on top of me. But when I got back in here everything went back to normal… so, so I can't. I'll just stay here." He lowered his head into his hands again and stared at the floor.

"No, you won't." My voice was cracking now, "I'll help – if you want me to… you don't have to stay in here, I don't care if it takes a long time, but I will." George raised his head; his eyes were watery and red as though he was trying his best not to cry.

"Really?" He whispered, "You'd really… you'd really do that?"

"Yes! I'm not going to let you stay trapped if you want to get out! I know mum and dad would want to help too…"

"No, please… they'd just lecture me about how I'm being stupid." George was shaking his head.

"Alright." I recoiled slightly. "Well I certainly won't let you stay stuck, and I know Ron won't either." I answered firmly, George smiled rather weakly.

"Th-Thank you." George said eventually, looking the most contented that I had seen him today and for a long while.

* * *

><p>AN: Whoaaaa….. that was long! I hope you've actually managed to read it and get down here! This one's taken me a while to write, so I'm sorry it hasn't been updated sooner! I wouldn't mind a couple of reviews (or 20), if you would ;) I'll try and update soon, but uni is getting hectic! It will be a week maybe at the very most! :)


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and will never make any money out of this WHATSOEVER!

A/N: After the War the Weasley family are reeling from Fred's death, from the point of view of George, Ron and Percy – following the twists and turns of their life as they learn to live without. _NOT SLASH! _Rated M for some explicit language and dark themes. Will contain references to self-harm and suicide, so could be triggering. Keep yourself safe and I hope you enjoy :)  
>I wouldn't mind a review (or 20) ;)<p>

This Chapter is in Ron's POV.

* * *

><p><em>Flick! <em>The kettle turned itself on as I waved my wand in its direction and sat down heavily at the kitchen table. I rubbed my hand roughly across my face and sighed. It was only then that I spotted a discoloured piece of parchment on top of a pile of other random bits of paper; my name was scrawled on the front of it. I picked it up with my left hand, flicking my right at the kettle, which poured boiling hot water into the mug that I had left there, and levitating the mug of tea over to me. I fished the tea bag out, whilst trying not to burn my fingers; and opened the scroll and scanned the words.

_'Ron, sorry for throwing those cups at your head. I'm not really sure why I did it. George.' _I sighed heavily and continued to stare at the parchment; but I was distracted by a loud clattering and the kitchen door opening and closing.

"You've been a long time." Ginny announced, placing her hand on her hip in the same sort of way that mum did when she was annoyed. "Did you go and see Hermione?" She asked me.

"No." I replied wearily.

"So where were you all this time?" I felt like I was under some kind of interrogation.

"With Percy." I answered, taking a long gulp of tea and scalding the inside of my mouth and throat as I had forgotten how hot it would be.

"For all this time?" She inquired sounding incredulous. "You left really early this morning!"

"Yeah, I know." I placed my mug down on the table – George's letter was still firmly grasped in my other hand. "He… I think I had a bit of a breakthrough moment with him." I expanded. "I got a bit annoyed with him; he was saying that he just wants to be let out so he could go back to his own flat."

"Tssk! As though mum and dad would let him do that!" Ginny stated quite abruptly, she was putting the kettle on again and making herself a cup of tea.

"That's what I told him; especially after what he did…" Ginny sat down across the table from me, warming her hands on the outside of her tea mug. "But he just kept saying how he'd rather be at home… I kind of snapped at the end and had a bit of a go at him…" Ginny raised her eyebrow as she looked at me. "I said that I'd gladly swap – with our wreck of a family who would actually voluntarily want to live here?"

"I know." She sighed. "I don't think I've ever seen _them _closer to a nervous breakdown." By 'them' I knew instantly that she was referring to mum and dad. "Everything has finally caught up with them and it's taking its toll… they need to have time to relax, they're still all wound up, but we're not fighting anymore…." She shrugged.

"But you know why they're still wound up…" I retorted simply. "George and Percy haven't exactly made it easy for them to relax, have they?"

"They're not doing that on purpose though…" Ginny said sensibly.

"No… but it's not helping, is it?" I shrugged.

"But that's why we should be doing our best to help them both, so that mum and dad don't have to do so much." She said, I nodded slowly and looked back at the letter from George. "I told Percy that if he didn't start co-operating with the healers then they were going to send him home." I told her. "I think I maybe got through to him…" I paused as she took a drink. "He asked if we were angry…?"

"Angry?" She put her cup down looking puzzled.

"Like if mum and dad were angry about what he had done." I explained.

"What did you tell him?"

"The truth! That no, they're not _angry_ as such, more upset that they haven't been able to help him. I also told him that he's been ignoring all of us, and everyone else." I answered, "I kind of had already gone on a bit of a rant and, I was sure I'd put my foot in my mouth by that stage – so I was being brutally honest. But it seemed to work on some level because he said that he was going to find out why the healers were saying he hadn't been co-operating; he said that he'd sort it… he seemed pretty serious."

"Well that's promising!" Ginny exclaimed.

"Yeah…" I murmured.

"What?" Ginny questioned, sounding suddenly suspicious. "You don't sound convinced…"

"Before he came to the conclusion that he had to do something to sort it, there was just… just something, it's quite hard to explain what I mean." I closed my eyes and rubbed my eyelids with the tips of my fingers, I took quite a pause before opening my eyes and beginning to explain. "When I was talking to him, there was something about his eyes… he just seemed blank – like there was a chasm, like this blackness in his eyes. I don't know if that explains it very well... But it, he looked really lost, and only at the end when he said that he would make a change that there was something different in his eyes, like there was a spark of something… Yeah, I know that description is vague – that darkness is quite unnerving, I have no idea what's going on inside his head... Like he said to dad that he'd just try again when he was let out."

"But it sounds like he's starting to do something at last." Ginny nodded, I looked back down at the mug of tea and the letter. "George has written to me…" I told her blankly, looking down from the words on the parchment to Ginny sitting opposite me.

"I know." She replied, suddenly breaking eye contact with me and looking at the wooden top of the table.

"How do you know?" I asked, she was looking incredibly shifty all of a sudden.

"I, um, well I read it before you got back…" She admitted, then before I could answer she added: "It was the handwriting! I recognised it but I couldn't tell exactly whose it was! So I checked and it was George's… then, I kind of thought that he was writing to you because he wanted someone to visit him and reckoned that you would once you got that letter…. So I went to visit him, and I think I was right about him wanting a visitor…" She said this all very quickly, as though trying to get it all out before I could get annoyed with her.

"Right…" I reacted slowly. "Well, alright… what do you mean about him wanting a visitor?"

"Well I went to see him, I thought I had woken him up at first…. But no." She explained shaking her head. "He looks _awful!_ But there was, just something not right… so I just kind of waited for something to happen…" She shrugged, "He was trying to pretend that everything was alright at first, but I told him to stop pretending; eventually he did."

"What happened?" I asked, feeling slightly relieved that Ginny had been to see George because I wasn't sure whether I could cope with any more confrontation today.

"He's struggling, he feels like he's lost his identity. He was one half of a duo that is no longer a duo." She replied, "But that wasn't the most worrying thing – he nearly had a panic attack at one point. He told me that he had written to you, and he expected that you would come and visit when you got the letter, and he knows you take milk in your tea, so he decided to go out shopping for milk as he hadn't done any shopping in a while." I could tell this re-accounting of the story was going somewhere but I couldn't quite tell where. "But he had gotten outside his front door, and the way he described it was like the world was going to collapse in on top of him. Everything was going fuzzy, and he felt like he couldn't breathe, and his legs got so heavy that he could hardly move them… it kind of sounds like a panic attack that he's had, but now he feels like he can't leave his flat without this happening again." She sighed and looked instantly exhausted. "I've never seen him like that, he was hysterical, he looked distraught!" She shook her head.

"What did you do when you finally told you this?" I questioned after a short pause.

"I told him we would help him…" She grinned sheepishly. "He didn't want mum and dad to know, he thinks they'd tell him he was being stupid… I think we shouldn't tell them either, but not for those reasons… I don't think we should be giving them anything else to worry about…"

"Uh-huh." I nodded, "Yeah, I get what you mean… but doesn't it sound like he needs proper help? Not the kind that we can give him."

"Probably, but if I had said that straight out then George wouldn't have wanted to know any more, would he?" Ginny said wisely.

"Hmmmm…. That's where you get this stuff more than I do! You know what to do and say in these kind of – delicate situations…. I just say the first thing that pops into my head, and more often than not it's _exactly _the wrong thing to say…" I admitted to her, watching her drinking all that was left in her cup. She stood up to refill her cup:

"But that's where you're wrong – I don't know what to say, I just think about how they're feeling and how they'd react if I did put my foot in it…" She retorted, "You're lucky, it sounds like you being brutally honest was the exact thing that Percy needed to hear; he needed something that would kick him into action. But I think George would have broken down and gotten more panicked if I had reacted in that way to him."

"Hmmm…" I hummed thoughtfully. My brain was reeling with thoughts of Percy and George, with the two of their situations – both brought out by the same set of circumstances. I rubbed my forehead with my hand; it was physically beginning to pound as I thought of that dark chasm that I had seen behind Percy's eyes. "Do you think…" I verbalised very slowly, as I was still formulating exactly what I was thinking. "Do you think that maybe Percy and George would be able to help each other?"

"You really think that would be a good mix to try? They're both as volatile as the other…" Ginny commented, "I'm not sure they'd be good together… George thinks he's lost his identity and Percy thinks it's all his fault that Fred is dead. I think they'd just wreck each other emotionally."

"Maybe not just now – not right at this very moment…" I replied scathingly. "In a little while – once they've done some talking about stuff, once they've opened up a bit. Don't you think that they might be able to help one another figure stuff out?" Ginny didn't look convinced but she seemed to consider it for a few moments, staring blankly off into space.

"I guess it would be worth a try once they're a bit more stable. Hopefully once Percy isn't threatening to kill himself every time someone goes and sees him, and once we've managed to get George out of his flat without passing out, then we can reconcile them, of sorts…" Ginny spoke slowly, thinking about what she was saying before she said it.

"That sounds like a fairly solid plan…" I agreed nodding. "but how are we actually going to stop Percy saying he's going to kill himself and get George out of his flat?" I hoped that Ginny maybe had ideas about how we could achieve these goals, but she looked as clueless as I felt.

"I have no idea…"

* * *

><p>AN: If you've got this far, thank you for reading! :) I'll try and update very soon, but uni coursework and work is piling on top of me – in the meantime, I wouldn't say no to a couple of reviews ;)


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and will never make any money out of this WHATSOEVER!

A/N: After the War the Weasley family are reeling from Fred's death, from the point of view of George, Ron and Percy – following the twists and turns of their life as they learn to live without. _NOT SLASH! _Rated M for some explicit language and dark themes. Will contain references to self-harm and suicide, so could be triggering. Keep yourself safe and I hope you enjoy :)  
>I wouldn't mind a review (or 20) ;)<p>

This Chapter is in George's POV.

* * *

><p><em>'Fred's gone. Fred's dead. He's never coming back. It's all my fault.'<em>

"It's not my fault, it can't be my fault." I whispered so quietly that I wasn't actually sure whether I made any noise, it felt like my lips just moved. There was no one around to hear, but it was the action of what I was trying to say that counted. "It's not my fault, it's not my fault." Healer Tabslett was currently with the other patient in the ward, but I saw him throw a worried look at me – I hadn't spoken to him, or anyone else, since Ron had left over five hours ago. I knew I must speak to him eventually, but before I did that I wanted to figure out what I was going to say. "It's not my fault. It can't be my fault." I could hear myself now, my voice was weak and raspy like I hadn't used it in ages. Healer Tabslett was coming in my direction now, he had left the one other patient and turned his focus onto me – and I had to say _something… _

"Good evening Percy." He greeted me when he finally arrived at the side of my bed; I opened my mouth to speak but no sound came out, so I closed it quickly. I didn't want to look like a goldfish. "Did you have a nice time talking to your brother this afternoon?" I nodded mutely, my brain working at a thousand miles an hour trying to think of what I was going to say to him. "Your dressing needs changed…. I thought we should do that now before it gets too late and you go to sleep. Are you alright with that?"

"Uh…" My brain still wasn't connecting with my mouth and I had to mentally scold myself and say: "Yes."

"I'll be back in a moment." Healer Tabslett told me and disappeared off, most likely to get clean dressings. I looked down at my arms, they were still very heavily bandaged; Healer Tabslett was right, the bandages really did need a change – the cloth material of the bandages was beginning to get a bit stained and grubby from having them on all day and all night for over a week. When Healer Tabslett came back he was carrying long lengths of bandages and a bottle of potion that he would apply to my wounds, in an attempt to make them heal quicker. He placed them down on the little table that I used to eat my meals off of.

"Alright Percy, let's have a look…" He held out his hand and I obliged by lifting my left arm, which was closest to him, up to meet his hand. He began, very slowly, to unpick the tags that were holding the bandages together. For some reason I suddenly felt like a very small child having a plaster taken off.

"Ron said that you want to send me home." I instantly knew the moment the words had left my lips, that I had sounded like a petulant whining child, so I focussed on the Healer's hands so I wouldn't have to look up at him.

"No, we don't _want _to send you home Percy – but we're not progressing any further. So we have to think whether we're of any use – is staying here of any use to you?" Healer Tabslett replied. "If the answer to that is no, then maybe something else will help you better."

"But I don't understand. How – what do I have to do to show progression?" I asked, watching layer and layer of cloth being unwound gently. The top couple of layers were slightly dirty from the general every day wear and tear, then there was a couple of layers that were still white and clean. As the bandage got closer to the skin of my arm I saw a difference though – there was a horribly red stain permeating the bandage. My arm had clearly been bleeding and had dried brick solid. It looked disgusting. The arm that was now unbandaged had a long wound running from my elbow right down to my wrist. I could hardly bear to look at it.

"Well Percy, we want to understand why you did this. What led you to do it?" Healer Tabslett replied picking up his wand, holding the used bandage over a metal dish and incinerating it. I swallowed – that would mean I would have to talk about it; about the war, about _him_. "I know that's difficult Percy. I understand there are probably things you'd prefer not to talk about, but there must be some serious stuff going on in your head for you to try this." He took hold of my arm – his hands were warm – and pressed gently around the sides of the long cut, I winced. It wasn't sore, but tender where the cut was knitting itself back together. "This is good." Healer Tabslett was nodding as he looked over my arm. "It's healing well – that's always a good sign."

"Will it scar?" I questioned, half glancing at it then averting my eyes very swiftly.

"Yes." He answered. "There's no point in me sugar coating it – it was a really deep cut Percy, and although it's healing nicely now it will leave a scar. In time it will fade, but it'll never disappear completely." I sighed – not only was I going to know what I had wanted to do, I was going to be left with a lasting reminder of how I had failed to succeed.

"When you say, you want me to explain why I did it…" I started slowly, "Do you not already know? Has my dad not told you?" Healer Tabslett paused in the action of dousing a gauze with a measure of peach coloured potion.

"No, we haven't been told anything Percy. All we know is what you did and how your father found you." He said I searched for any note of dishonesty in his voice, but I couldn't hear any. "From the way your father spoke to us when you were first admitted it sounded like _he _didn't understand it either." He took hold of my arm and began to dab at the wound with the potion covered gauze.

"But… but you know about my brother, right?" I fumbled over the words as I didn't really want to think about Fred.

"I know you have quite a few brothers." He told me, dropping the used gauze into the metal dish and picking up a length of bandage and beginning to wind it carefully around my arm. "I know one of your brothers died during the war, if that's what you're talking about." I looked at my lap as he finished bandaging my arm and tapped it with the end of his wand, where he touched the bandage a tag magically formed and sealed up the end of it.

"Do you know that it was my fault?" My voice was weak again, and so quiet that I wasn't sure that he had heard me at first.

"What was your fault?" He asked placidly, moving round to the other side of the bed and picking up my other arm to take its bandage.

"Him dying." I answered eventually, still not looking up at him.

"How could it be your fault?" He asked me, although he sounded as though he wasn't really paying attention.

"It just is." I replied dully, "He didn't deserve it." Healer Tabslett was unwinding the third layer of bandages on my right arm.

"And you did deserve it?" He asked lightly, neither of us were looking at the other. "Many people die who 'deserve' life, and some people live who 'deserve' death." Healer Tabslett said rather philosophically. "That is something that we have no control over – and we _shouldn't _have control over. Who are we to decide who should live or die." I sat in silence, pondering over what he had just said.

"He really didn't deserve it though, he hadn't betrayed his family, or been so sucked into ambition that he lost sight of what is important…" I murmured.

"And you think that he would want you to throw away the life that you still have, just because you made mistakes?" He posed this statement as a question to me; it hurt my brain too much to get my head around, so I remained silent. "Hmmm… this doesn't look good." He was inspecting my right arm now; I chanced a glance at it and then wished I hadn't looked. There was an almost identical wound to the one on my left arm running down my right, but it didn't look so clean. The skin wasn't knitting itself back together; there was a crusted yellow layer around the sides of the cut. And under the scab there were pools of pus. "Oh dear… I can tell this is infected just by looking at it." My stomach turned over inside me, so I squeezed my eyes shut to try and avoid even seeing it out of the corner of my eye. But even with my eyes completely closed I was reminded by a sour, rotting smell that invaded my nostrils, but I wasn't sure whether I was imagining it.

"Please do something about it." I pleaded, still with my eyes shut, and attempting not to gag from the smell. "Please? Can you just try and fix it?"

"I'm not going to leave it like this Percy, I'll have to clean it up and it will probably sting quite a bit as I try and clean away all of the dead cells." Healer Tabslett replied.

"Yeah, alright… do whatever, please." I said without having listened to what he had said. I could feel his hand on my wrist, and then a gentle scraping sensation around the cut. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and a shiver ran down my spine. I didn't know how long I held my eyes closed for, or how long it took for Healer Tabslett to clean the cut, but I only opened my eyes when I felt him wrapping a length of bandage around my arm.

"We'll have to keep an eye on that arm." He told me, "We don't want that getting any worse."

"Mmmm." I hummed, not sure of what to say and not necessarily inclined to restart the previous conversation.

"Right, I'll let you get some rest." He said finally, picking up the metal dish with the ashes of the incinerated bandages and used gauze in it and moved away from the edge of my bed. I thought about what Healer Tabslett had said:

_'And you think he would want you to throw away the life that you still have, just because you made mistakes?' _I hadn't ever thought about it from that angle, mainly because I had been sure that it had all been my fault.

_'Fred is gone. He is dead… but is it really all my fault?'_

* * *

><p>AN: Yet again, I apologise for the long gap between updating – but university work has been almost killing me!


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and will never make any money out of this WHATSOEVER!

A/N: After the War the Weasley family are reeling from Fred's death, from the point of view of George, Ron and Percy – following the twists and turns of their life as they learn to live without. _NOT SLASH! _Rated M for some explicit language and dark themes. Will contain references to self-harm and suicide, so could be triggering. Keep yourself safe and I hope you enjoy :)

I wouldn't mind a review (or 20) ;)

This chapter is in Ginny's POV

* * *

><p>"Why are you always sat at that table?" Ron asked, clattering down the staircase as I sat with a cup of tea and textbook in front of me.<p>

"Because I am trying to do some work for when I go back to school." I answered glibly.

"Pfft…" He scorned.

"Well at least I'm trying to do something to work; are you going to come back to school?" I asked him, closing my book as he sat down at the table.

"Doubt it. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do. I don't think school is a priority right now – especially with Percy and George the way they are. I'd rather be at home." Ron was tracing a dent in the table top with his finger.

"I'm not saying that I don't want to help them- " I started hotly, but Ron cut in over me.

"I'm not inferring that you don't want to help them, I just don't think that I'll be going back to school – so there isn't really any point in me studying at the moment." He was shaking his head. "I'm just trying to put all of my brain power into figuring out what we can do to help Percy and George…" He sighed, "Not that I'm coming up with anything, mind you…" He added a lot quieter.

"I've been thinking about that too…" I said, "And about what you were saying, that Percy and George might be able to help each other…"

"Did you come up with anything?" He inquired.

"Well… I think they might be able to help each other, kind of… I mean, maybe Percy will stop threatening to kill himself if he realises that George doesn't blame him for Fred's death, but us telling him that isn't going to make an impact – but if George says it in person, then maybe Percy will believe it."

"But George isn't going to leave his flat, so how are we supposed to make that happen?" Ron interjected.

"I'm still working on that bit…" I muttered under my breath. "Haven't you had any ideas?" I asked him slightly exasperatedly, his reply was to stare back at me blankly.

"I'm no good at that sort of thing! You're the one who comes up with this sort of stuff!" Ron said shrugging his shoulders, I ignored him and re-opened my book once more. There was almost a full minute of silence between us as I stared fixedly at my book, not actually reading a word, but gazing into the white space around the black letters. "Could we trick him?" I heard Ron say.

"Who?" I asked vaguely, not looking up at him.

"The giant squid! Who do you think I mean?" Ron exclaimed sarcastically. "George!"

"Trick him? How do you mean trick him?" I asked, choosing not to retaliate to his sarcasm.

"Well, I dunno…"

"You're the one who suggested it!" I sighed.

"Yeah, I know… but I just thought we could maybe trick him out of his flat; I hadn't thought of logistics or anything." Ron was rolling his eyes at me. "Merlin's beard, Ginny! You ask me to come up with something, so I come up with something on the spot and you find fault!"

"I'm your sister, that's my job." I answered flatly. "And it's not a very good idea anyway…"

"What do you mean, 'It's not a very good idea'?" He asked sounding outraged, I closed my book again and placed it down on the table.

"Well… George has only started trusting us again. And he doesn't even trust mum and dad to not think he's being stupid." I replied calmly. "I don't think he would keep trusting us if we tricked him… I think he'd find out and then he'd cut himself off from everyone again."

"Good point… yeah, you're probably right." Ron's brow furrowed as he thought. "But how else are we going to get him out of his flat? I mean, there isn't actually a logical reason for him being afraid to leave, is there?"

"No… but I'm not sure that him being stuck in his flat is the actual problem, I think that it's just the result of it…" I voiced what I had been wondering for a while.

"So… no, all this thinking is too much work!" Ron said exasperatedly. "If him not being able to leave the flat isn't the actual problem, then what _is _the actual problem?"

_Knock, knock, knock!_

"Hello?" A voice came from the doorway, both Ron and I turned to look. Hermione was standing in the doorway, looking slightly sheepish.

"Hermione!" Both of us chorused at the same time. Ron stood up from the table the quickest I had ever seen and swept over to the doorway, I looked back down at my book while they kissed – knowing full well that Ron would get annoyed if I was watching them. I flicked my wand over my shoulder and the kettle turned itself on.

"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" Hermione asked, "It sounded like you were discussing something important."

"Discussing and not getting anywhere…" Ron muttered.

"No, you're not interrupting anything!" I replied, guessing that Ron was going to keep mumbling to himself. "We were trying to bat some ideas about – but Ron, maybe Hermione will be able to help?" I suggested, staring at him as they sat down side by side at the table.

"Oh? What were you discussing?" She asked, Ron scowled as though I was taking away from his time with Hermione.

"George." I answered.

"And Percy." Ron cut over me.

"Yes, alright! I was getting there!" I exclaimed, "But we were mainly talking about George today…" Ron tutted and got up to make tea for himself and Hermione, so I addressed her instead. "I went to see George yesterday, and he was in a bit of a state… he said he'd written to Ron because he wanted to see someone; but he had gone out to buy milk, so that they could have a cup of tea, but he got outside his front door and had a panic attack and he's now too scared to leave his flat." I explained, pointedly ignoring Ron clattering around behind me, making as much noise as he possibly could. "I told him that Ron and I would help him if he wanted us to, and he agreed, as long as we didn't tell mum and dad anything… but now we're kind of stuck, because we're not sure what to do to help him… he probably needs professional help." Ron sat down with a cup of tea for himself and Hermione, who looked as though she was in deep thought herself.

"So he's afraid to leave his flat because he's scared that he'll have another panic attack?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah, I guess so…" I replied, "I mean, there's no other reason as to why he wouldn't be able to leave the flat?"

"Whatever his reason, most likely it's psychological…" She went on. "And it's important to break whatever the psychological reasoning is before it develops into full blown agoraphobia…"

"Agro-whatya?" Ron spluttered into his tea. "I thought that was what I had, with spiders…"

"Agoraphobia… not arachnophobia." Hermione corrected him calmly. "No agoraphobia is like an anxiety disorder that can end with people not being able to leave their house."

"Sounds like George…" Ron muttered under his breath.

"When I was about eight or nine, before I knew I was a witch, there was a woman in the street I lived on who hadn't left her house in nearly twenty years." Hermione said, "I remember my mum explaining it to me, because we knew everyone on our street; we used to have street parties in the summer, but I had never seen her… Her family would come and go, but she stayed inside."

"So what do we do to stop that happening to George?" I asked.

"Well, you said that George doesn't want you to tell your parents?" I was nodding. "He's not able to leave his flat, and he's scared that people aren't going to take him seriously…" She was speaking aloud to herself, working through the problems and barriers that George had placed around himself.

"So he's not going to accept proper help, and Ron's not coming up with any decent ideas – other than to trick him – but that might end up with him not trusting us all over again." I sighed heavily, Ron looked indignant, but didn't argue with me.

"So he's not going to accept professional help… so why don't you accept it for him?" Hermione suggested.

"What do you mean? How could we accept the help for him?" I questioned.

"Well, go and ask a professional what you could do to help him, and then do it." She shrugged. "Go to one of the St. Mungos healers and ask them what they would do…"

"We could go to Percy's healer – you know the guy that's looking after Perce – what's his name? Tablet or something?" I said quickly to Ron.

"Yeah, Healer Tabslett – do you think he would know what to do?" Ron replied.

"It's worth asking him for advice at the very least… I doubt he would tell us to do something that would make George worse…" I was convinced of that at the least. "That's a really great idea Hermione, I don't think either of us would have thought of that!"

"That's because she's so wonderful that these genius ideas just come naturally to her." Ron was grinning with a rather soppy look on his face, Hermione's cheeks tinted pink as Ron put his hand on top of hers on the table.

"Euch…" I cringed slightly. "Do you want me to leave you two alone for a while?" I asked.

"No, it's alright. We're going to go out for a bit." Ron retorted, "And when I get back we can go and pay a visit to Healer Tabslett, then George."

"Okay… have fun!" I said, opening my book again and staring into the white space around the words. I had never heard of agoraphobia until Hermione had mentioned it just there, but everything she had described sounded just like George and what he was going through.

After I didn't know how long I sat thinking round and round about the situation with George, and wondering what – if any – advice the Healer would give us about getting George out of his flat.

I was glad that Hermione had come to visit, neither Ron nor I would have thought about asking a Healer for advice on what to do about George.

Time is such a peculiar thing – I found myself having sat for nearly three quarters of an hour, just contemplating the past, the present… and the future. The War had only been over for a few months; the rebuilding of the world, of the entire community was commencing. The Ministry of Magic, under the wise guidance of Kingsley, had pledged to be much more forthcoming and honest about everything that had happened during the war; as well as everything that was affecting the community presently.

The majority of the Death Eaters who had not been killed or captured at the Battle of Hogwarts had been rounded up in the following weeks, to be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity – not all of those trials were over yet… Dad was on one of the committees that were dealing with those who had been arrested. It was slow, and systematic, work he told us – it sometimes took a while to gather all the relevant information that they could find and bring it together before they could put someone on trial. They had dealt with the Malfoy family as soon as the tribunals had been set up – the only reason I knew that was because Harry had testified for them; he was adamant that Narcissa had saved his life and without her help he wouldn't have been able to defeat Voldemort. The Malfoy's had been acquitted by the tribunal… I was convinced that it was Harry's testimony that had secured that for them. But the trials were by no means over, there was lots of others whom they had not looked at yet, and were in Azkaban until their time of trial…

But it wasn't all bad… there had been a full apology issued to Sirius, and his name had been completely cleared; it seemed that Kingsley agreed with Harry – Sirius had spent too much of his life imprisoned, or on the run, and in death he deserved to rest in peace… Kingsley had also stripped the Order of Merlin, First Class, from Peter Pettigrew…

So many other families had encountered injuries or fatalities as well, there was no way that we were alone in what we were going through.

My mind went from Death Eater tribunals, to individual Death Eaters, to those who have been acquitted, to the other people that were suffering as a result of the War, the families that were grieving, like ours, those people who had been injured to the point where they would never fully heal… the I wondered whether George fell into that category; I greatly doubted that he would ever "get over" Fred's death, I didn't think it was fair of us to even expect that of him… so did that mean he was damaged beyond repair?

I thought about Percy… he had slid down since the end of the war – none of us had _hated _him before, we hadn't liked his decisions, his choices… but they were his, and not something that we had any influence over… and he _had _come back! When we had needed people, as we were preparing to fight, Percy had come back; and after he had done that, nothing else mattered. I wondered about the way things would have turned out if Percy hadn't come back to fight during the War… would he have come back afterwards? Would he be in the position he was in now? No… more than likely he wouldn't have been in St. Mungos after trying to kill himself… There were so many 'what if' scenarios that ran through my head… but I couldn't keep thinking about all the 'what ifs', if I did then that would surely drive me mad!

"Ginny." Ron's voice broke me out of my reverie. "Do you want to go now?"

"Oh! Wait a minute, I'll just get ready." I said, getting up from the table. "You didn't spend long with Hermione?" I was trying not to sound too questioning, or interested.

"Yeah, she's doing some stuff in the Ministry to help with the rebuilding and everything before you go back to Hogwarts." Ron explained.

"Oh right…" I nodded, jamming my shoes onto my feet roughly. "Let's go."

* * *

><p>AN: Sorry it's taken a little while to update this again – I'm still writing the next chapter, so it might be a couple of days before I update it again! In the meantime, I wouldn't say no to a couple of reviews! :)


End file.
